Jack Black Recalls Yelling At Ben Stiller & Storming Off Tropic Thunder Set

Jack Black recalls a wild story from his experience on the Tropic Thunder set. Directed by Ben Stiller, the 2008 comedy action movie followed a group of actors shooting a war film who, after circumstances go wrong, must actually work to survive. The movie was met with backlash and controversy revolving around its depiction of disabled people and its use of blackface. However, Tropic Thunder was a success critically and commercially, and also earned an Oscar nomination.

During Black’s appearance in Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, he regaled O’Brien with his infamous experience involving a water buffalo on the set of Tropic Thunder. In a scene that required Black to mount the creature and ride it, he sensed danger from the beginning. Before long, the actor was thrown from the water buffalo and miraculously landed between two boulders without any injuries. Read or watch Black’s full retelling of the story below:

I’m just in my underpants, I think I’m strapped to the buffalo because I’m like going through drug withdrawals at the same time, so I’m a sweaty mess. And the buffalo, I can tell, is just a little uncomfortable. And they say, ‘Action!’ And we start moving, and I’m like, ‘Uh oh, what’s happening here?’ Maybe it sensed my fear. But it was uncomfortable and it just started bucking, bronco, and I was like, ‘Ahhh!’ And it— I flew off of that thing! And I went a** over tea kettle, I think, because there’s no footage of it, just like you, but we hadn’t entered frame yet, like we were right behind the mountain, we were coming around, and I flew and did a little flipdeedo and landed miraculously between two boulders and did not get injured at all. I did not have a hematoma. I just sort of had this miraculous safe landing.

And Ben was, I could hear him off in the distance saying, ‘What’s going on? Are we cutting? Let’s take it— Jack! Take it from the top! We didn’t get any of that.’ I was like, ‘No! You take it from the top! You get on that f*cking buffalo!’ Because I had so much adrenaline inside of me. I thought I was gonna— I saw my life flash before my eyes. And then I stormed off to my trailer just because I was shaking and not in any mood to be in the movie anymore.

Black And Stiller Haven’t Done A Movie Together In 16 Years

But A Tropic Thunder Sequel Wouldn’t Work Today

Black and Stiller are big names in comedy even now. However, they’ve only done two movies together, the second being Tropic Thunder and the first being the 2004 dark comedy Envy. The latter opened to negative reviews — it has an 8% rating from critics and 27% from viewers on Rotten Tomatoes — and performed poorly at the box office, but has become a cult classic among those who appreciate its absurdity. Additionally, despite a rough experience on set, Black reportedly brings up a Tropic Thunder sequel named Arctic Lightning to Stiller every time he sees him.

Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that Black could reprise his role as Jeff Portnoy in any Tropic Thunder sequel, as the character would be a hard sell in a world that now thankfully celebrates plus-sized bodies. The character was possibly a caricature of actor Chris Farley, with Jeff trying to transition from a one-note comedy actor to a more serious one. However, it conveys this through various fat jokes. This is just one among many reasons the concept of Tropic Thunder 2 would be a hard ask today, with the use of blackface being another.

While the progressive views of today are warmly welcomed, some may be a bit disappointed if it means that no follow-up to Tropic Thunder will materialize. The film still holds up as a kind of classic parody that makes great use of its actors with characters and one-liners that are hard to forget, even if its jokes would be deemed inappropriate or offensive today. Black’s story of the raging water buffalo is a testament to Tropic Thunder’s comedy in the sense that it was funny yet risky, and perhaps is an example of a different time.

Source: Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend

Tropic Thunder

4.0

Written and directed by Ben Stiller, Tropic Thunder follows a group of bumbling actors attempting to make a Vietnam War film, who find themselves dropped into a real-life warzone when they are abandoned in the middle of the jungle they are shooting the film in. Stiller also stars in the film, with an ensemble cast that includes Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., and Jay Baruchel. 

Release Date

August 13, 2008

Studio(s)

DreamWorks Distribution

Distributor(s)

DreamWorks Distribution , Paramount Pictures

Runtime

107 minutes

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